Comments on: Where’s Tom Lehrer?

By: shamsky24

shamsky24 — Sun, 23 Jun 2013 16:28:46 +0000

Douglas Adams enabling Marxism? Monty Python as a “window into the West’s decline”?

See, now this is why liberals think you conservatives have no sense of humor.

By: horn

horn — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:05:07 +0000

‘Poisoning pigeons in the park’ still makes me laugh out loud.

By: Lorenz Gude

Lorenz Gude — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 14:16:51 +0000

After listening to several more I must say that while it never occurred to me to memorize them I seem to know them extremely well. Funnily enough I don’t think I ever much agreed with him but thoroughly enjoyed his wit – which is remarkably reminiscent of Gilbert and Sullivan. I was never in the slightest offended by the Vatican Rag even though I was a Roman Catholic. Well, as my dad put it we were ‘Harvard Catholics’ if you take my meaning. While I delighted in his song about Werner von Braun I always knew it was quite unfair. You can see just how verbally adroit he was separate from his usual skewed point of view in his Elements song, which except for a swipe at Harvard at the end is politically neutral.

By: Jvermeer51

Jvermeer51 — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 01:57:15 +0000

Always loved his line:
“Remember the war against Franco.
That’s where each one of us belong.
Though he may have won all the battles.
We had all the good songs.”

Just four lines tell you much about the 60’s left.

By: Don Carlos

Don Carlos — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 15:39:01 +0000

Lehrer as a person, as a dry and uninspiring statistician, is a much different persona from the inventive wordsmith we hear in “Old and Gray”.
I appreciate his verbal cleverness now as much as 50 yrs ago.

It is a mistake to imbue the songsmith with the attributes of the song. That I admire the cleverness of his lyrical constructs does not mean that I must agree with its conclusions (December…May), nor do I project my admiration for his clever songwriting onto the man himself. That is why we now have Angelina Jolie appearing at the G-8 summit. Bizarre.

By: ziontruth

ziontruth — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 13:47:45 +0000

Tom Lehrer, Monty Python, Douglas Adams, MAD Magazine… and the rest of those hip, trendy folks who made their careers out of slaughtering every sacred cow.

It looked so good at the time. “Speaking truth to power,” such a great ideal. The only trouble is, they were a man sitting on a branch of a tree sawing that branch off. And they did saw it off successfully. They’re a window into the West’s decline, and the reason why those who do still hold to their own sacred cows–some of them ferociously and violently, such as the Muslims–are gaining the upper hand over those who have abandoned all that used to be sacred to them.

Those satirists weren’t all Marxists. But, they were an important tool, an essential level-smoother, for the Marxists to get their way. And when this is accomplished, the Marxist or Islamic “utopia” has no use for the satirists. They have new sacred cows, and the Marxists at least are clever enough to forbid the slaughter of those sacred cows in the name of… diversity and tolerance.

Court jesters are needed from time to time, but if you don’t hold them with a leash of opprobrium when they take liberties with your core values, disaster will ensue. It’s in plain sight now.

By: Jim Nicholas

Jim Nicholas — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 11:39:39 +0000

Your post prompted me to get out my set of Tom Lehrer’s records again. I have enjoyed his humor through more than half a century–from when I first saw him in a very small night club in the late 1950s until now, from when I was a liberal until now a conservative. He poked fun at liberals and conservatives alike. The only song that ever bothered me, then and now, is ‘The Vatican Rag’. Even back when I was an atheist, it seemed a bit offensive to me.

By: Gringo

Gringo — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:38:38 +0000

Like Neo, I memorized Tom Lehrer's songs during my childhood years. Humor is often dated, especially humor based on current social or political topics. What amazes me about Tom Lehrer's songs is how they are often still relevant in our society a half century after they were written. The Folk Song Army skewers the self-righteous if "well-intentioned" left as well today as it did in 1965. As I was one of The Folk Song Army back then, I didn't appreciate the song as much then as I did now. A Christmas Carol describes "Christmas as we celebrate it in the United States" as well today as it did in the 1950s.

By: Gary Rosen

Gary Rosen — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 05:00:15 +0000

Lehrer attended the same high school I did, about 20 years earlier. Once the students tried to invite him back to speak and he replied, “It never seems to be on my way to anywhere”.

By: Geoffrey Britain

Geoffrey Britain — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 04:03:28 +0000

Believe it or not, till this very moment, I had never even heard of Lehrer. Now, I can fully appreciate his obvious talent and his sarcastic whit tickles my funny-bone.

Yet at the same time, Lehrer’s cynicism is revealing of the disappointed idealism that mistakenly concludes that human fallibility is conclusive evidence that ideals themselves are mere illusion.